


road to hell.

by feyre_darling



Category: Hadestown - Mitchell (Broadway) RPF, Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: A Hadestown and PJO crossover, Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson-centric, Dreams and Nightmares, F/M, Inspired by Hadestown, Memories of Tartarus, Orpheus is Percy and Eurydice is Annabeth!, Percy don't turn around you might send ur wife to hell, Post-Tartarus (Percy Jackson), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Prophecy, Rebirth, Reincarnation, There's too many similarities with HOO and this musical to not ok, a bit of a strange concept but we'll go w it, because why not?, oops you already did
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-15 06:28:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,928
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29679798
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feyre_darling/pseuds/feyre_darling
Summary: Hades leant on his cane and looked towards the end of the torchlit tunnel.“There will be a price, Eurydice. If we make this deal. There’s always a price. Do you understand?”“Yes!” Eurydice’s voice echoed through the tavern. “Yes, I understand, I do, nowpleaselet me go with him.”“Alright.” said Hades. “Let’s go.”(In which, after Orpheus's death, Eurydice makes a desperate deal with Hades. The price? Percy and Annabeth are about to find out. A slight Hadestown/post-House of Hades crossover thing.)
Relationships: Annabeth Chase/Percy Jackson, Eurydice/Orpheus (Hadestown)
Comments: 1
Kudos: 18





	1. prologue: way down hadestown

**Author's Note:**

  * For [yubarta](https://archiveofourown.org/users/yubarta/gifts).



> i've been obsessed with pjo and hadestown for ages now (who isn't!!) and finally thought of writing the story i've been thinking about for ages. spoiler alert: it's WhACK.
> 
> chapter title is a song from the musical!

Hades strode along the cobbled pathway towards the oil rig, slipping in and out of the shadows as if he himself were one; tapping his cane against the floor and listening to its reverberation echo through the tunnel and climb up the cavernous walls. Behind him, a young woman ran through the dark, the sound of her voice, a desperate, incessant pleading, mixing with the loud clunk of iron and bangs of metal on metal. Hades ignored her. 

“Hades!” The woman’s voice grated against his ears. She struggled through the shadows, cursing and yelling in frustration as they held her back. “Hades, _listen to me_!”

“Go home, Eurydice. I have work to do.” 

The woman laughed, then; a cold, humourless laugh filled with bitterness and hatred. “ _Home?_ That’s funny, Hades. The last time I checked this was Hell. That’s not home.”

Hades felt the anger rising in his chest. With a flick of his hand, the tunnel in front of them lit up with torches, their flames hot and frenzied, burning brightly against the darkness. He carried on walking, shadows flitting around him like water- twisting and turning to fit every curve and edge of his being. Eurydice let out a scream of frustration as she pushed through them. 

“You agreed to stay here. Therefore it _is_ your home, and it has been since your husband failed my trial and turned around.” Hades did not look back, but he knew she was close behind. “It’s as simple as that. You haven’t had a problem with it until now.”

“I agreed when I died, Hades.” Eurydice snarled. “I didn’t agree when you took me back here a second time, all because Orpheus did something you didn’t want him to!”

“He turned around.” Hades reminded her. 

“You tricked him!”

Hades shook his head and continued on along the path. “We’ve been through this. I didn’t trick him. There was no trick. It was his own fault, and you know it.” 

“It wasn’t his fault!” Eurydice’s voice had risen to a scream, but Hades heard her breath shudder, and she inhaled slowly, forcing the rising hysteria back down. Through the walls, metal thudded and scraped. “It wasn’t his fault, and now he’s dead, and I’m asking you to do this. _Please.”_  


Slowly, Hades turned around and surveyed her. He narrowed his eyes, cane resting on the floor, and pushed the shadows away into the corners of the tunnel. Eurydice’s bloodshot eyes came into view, face lit up by the torchlight.

“You want me to let you up there. To Elysium, to be with him.” 

“Yes.” Eurydice breathed. “Yes, please let me go. I’ve been here long enough. You got what you wanted, okay? He’s dead, and so am I. Now let me go.”

“I can’t do that.”

Eurydice’s eyes clouded over with darkness. Hades felt the rage rising from her in waves of heat.

“Why not?”

“Because he’s not in Elysium. He’s about to choose Rebirth, right this very moment.”

There was something almost saddening in the way the woman’s face fell; how the light left her eyes in a sudden wave of disbelief. “No.” She said. “No, he can’t be. Why would he-” Hades watched grimly, as the realisation dawned on her. 

“He thinks you’ll keep me here forever.” She said. Her hand flew up to cover her mouth as soon as the words left her lips.

“Yes.” Hades nodded. “Rebirth is better than being in Elysium, alone for eternity. You have to admire the boy, really. It’s a smart choice.”

“No.” Eurydice shook her head, hand still covering her mouth. Something in Hades chest twinged, and he turned back around. He didn’t have time to be sympathetic. The son of Apollo made a mistake, and now it seemed he was making another- there was no coming back from it, not for anyone. That was the way the Underworld worked, and he couldn’t do anything even if he wanted to.

“No, no, no-” Eurydice’s voice continued behind him as he walked, almost hysterical- until she stopped suddenly. Hades halted his steps and listened in the dark. 

“Let me be reborn with him.” 

Hades chuckled dryly, scorning her naïve desperation and pitying it at the same time. “You won’t remember him. Even if I let you do it, you’ll just be souls in a different body. You won’t remember each other.”

Eurydice did not relent. “Then put us together.” She pleaded. “In every life, every time we are reborn, let us live as husband and wife. I don’t care if we don’t remember. I just…I can’t live like this anymore. Knowing he is somewhere else, somewhere I can never reach him. I would rather not remember than live here without him. _Please, Hades._ ”

It was curious, but something in Hades consciousness shifted. He remembered the sound of Orpheus’s song; the melody, bright and gentle, lifting the ground up to meet the sky in a blaze of green and yellow- bringing Spring, Persephone’s spirit. Before Orpheus had died- and it had not been long after he had left Tartarus without his wife- there was music, and life. After that, the only songs they had ever heard from him were of grief. 

Hades leant on his cane and looked towards the end of the torchlit tunnel. 

“There will be a price, Eurydice. If we make this deal. There’s always a price. Do you understand?” 

“Yes!” Eurydice’s voice echoed through the tavern. “Yes, I understand, I do, now _please_ let me go with him.”

“Alright.” said Hades. “Let’s go.”


	2. chapter one: doubt comes in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry these chapters are quite short but I like writing them this way, so probably all of this fic will be set out like this. however there will hopefully be plenty of chapters! <3

Four days after their escape from Tartarus, Percy woke up on the Argo II in a tangled mess of sheets and sweat, shooting up from the bed and gasping heavily into the darkness. His chest felt like it had been kicked violently by three Harpies in a row, and as he leant over with his head in his hands, fighting for breath, the dream came back to him in a sudden rush of panic.

He had been walking through Tartarus- it was dark, but that’s where Percy assumed he was, for that place was all he had been thinking about since they left, especially at night. As he walked, Percy had noticed that he wasn’t wearing any shoes; his feet were completely bare, covered with dirt and bruises and something that looked distinctly like coal dust. Sounds reverberated through the walls, ones he didn’t recollect from his recent visit to Hell. Instead of the low, gurgling groans that seemed to tremor through the very heart of Tartarus himself, instead of the blazing rush of the Phlegethon and the hiss of creatures circling above them, it sounded like mining. A clanking and grinding of metal on metal, rocks and stones echoing into the ether as he walked, crunching beneath his feet and slicing them painfully. Voices, whispering, hollering, jumbled with the slicing and digging of iron; seeping into his consciousness and making it hard to put one foot in front of the other.

The panic began when Percy realised he was walking without Annabeth. He could see nothing but a faint path running out in front of him, and every time he thought about turning to see if she were behind him, a faint voice caught on the wind and dug deep into his mind. _Don’t._ it said. _Don’t turn around._

Percy didn’t. He kept walking for what seemed like an eternity, listening to the voices crawl in and out of earshot, the grinding of metal and the crack of stones under foot. All the while the panic in his chest grew, blazing like fire. He struggled to keep his breathing level as his own thoughts pushed to the surface. “Annabeth?” He heard his own shaking voice. “Annabeth?”

 _It’s a trap. She’s not here._ He kept moving. _It’s a trick._ One foot, then the other. _You’ll never leave Tartarus with her. You’ll never leave with her._ Slowly, his chest began to heave- breath rattling with every inhale, catching on every exhale. _Where is she? Where is Annabeth?_

And then, just like that, he woke up. 

Percy didn’t realise Annabeth was in the room with him until a hand reached out to touch the small of his back. It travelled upwards, arms resting around his middle, pulling him towards her as she sat up. 

“It’s alright.” He heard Annabeth whisper against the back of his neck. “Breathe.”

Percy sucked in a breath, and then another. “But-”

“I’m okay.” Annabeth cut him off. She tightened her arms around his torso, pressing their bodies so closely together that Percy began to feel as though her breaths were his own. “We’re okay. We’re together. Just breathe. I’ve got you.”

Percy struggled to remember how she had ended up in his room that night. The past few days had been strange, to say the least; a confusing jumble of battle preparation and sleepless nights, trying to adjust to being in the outside world again without freaking out or going insane on the others. There had been a night like this already, with Annabeth’s nightmare waking up everybody on the ship; Percy’s anger at not being able to stay with her threatening to burst every single water pipe in a five-hundred-mile radius. It seemed tonight as though Annabeth had given up on the rules completely.

“Had a bad dream.” She mumbled, when Percy’s breathing had turned steady. “Didn’t want to be by myself. It’s stupid, I don’t know.” 

Percy shifted, and Annabeth loosened her grip on him. When they were both laying down again, he turned and slung an arm around her middle, burying his face in her hair. “It’s not stupid.”

“They’re going to kill us if they find us.” She said, without the slightest concern in her voice. Percy chuckled dryly, and then sighed.

“We just got back from Tartarus, Wise girl. I don’t think anyone’s gonna hold it against us right now.” He paused, listening to their breathing in the dark, knowing Annabeth was thinking the same thing. After a while, the tightness in his chest had reduced to a dull ache, and he heaved out a breath, inhaling the smell of lemon soap. 

“You weren’t there, in my dream. I was walking, and it was so dark I couldn’t see a thing. I wanted to check if you were following me. But I knew I couldn’t turn around. I don’t know, it was weird. I don’t remember that happening down there.”

Annabeth shifted under the sheets, wrapping her legs around his, twining their fingers together and bringing them up, interlocked, to rest by her face. “Dreams are strange, Perce. They’re not always a memory.”

“I know, but-” Percy struggled to keep himself calm again, memories of the dream threatening to resurface in vivid colour. “It felt so _real._ And you weren’t there. You were-”

“Hey, shh.” Annabeth cut him off again with a whisper. “I’m here now. We got out. I’m here.” She touched Percy’s hand to her lips and pressed it against them softly. “You need to sleep.”

Percy closed his eyes and focused on the feeling of their bodies pressed together under the quilt; the sound of their breathing, steady and even. The hum of the pipes in the ship, lulling them to sleep. 

He was almost asleep when a fragment of the dream slipped through his consciousness in a blur of hazy recollection. When he was walking, listening to the sounds of a Tartarus unfamiliar to him, he called out for Annabeth. 

Except, he didn’t. He called for Eurydice.

_Who the Hades is Eurydice?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oop. percy is confusedTM and so are WE.

**Author's Note:**

> for yubarta, who was incredibly supportive on my last pjo fic. hope you like it! x


End file.
